The backlash is real surrounding the new trailer for Mufasa: The Lion King as now Disney has disabled comments on their official YouTube channel.
The trailer was only released on Monday, but has gotten so much backlash that even the director is now involved and has responded to fans.
My article published on Tuesday has a screenshot of the trailer having 148K likes, so in another day’s time, the trailer has added a whopping 70k dislikes and is now at 218k dislikes.
Why aren’t fans happy?
Why fans are unhappy is that they feel the movie is a cash grab, that it retcons the original source material, and that it changes a lot of things.
Here is a selection of the comments from what I saved before Disney disabled them on the trailer:
“Without a drop of nobility” so this movie literally retcons Mufasa’s whole conversation with Simba, making him the first king of the Pride Lands – 6.6K
It’s funny how Lin Manuel Miranda agreed to write original songs for this movie instead of Moana 2 – 5.9k likes
Without a drop of nobility” Totally retconning Mufasa’s speech with Simba
like when Mufasa said, “So what am I? Some kind of Lion King?” – 1.7k
I wish they were making this movie in their classic 2d animation style – 6.5k
Without a drop of nobility…” as he tossed the lightsaber over his shoulder. – 738
1:08 guaranteed that’s part of Timon telling Kiara the story of how he and Pumbaa took down Scar singlehanded – 1.4k
This should be the origin story of Scar. I’m imagining Mufasa scratching his face singing “I can’t wait to be king” – 649
The part where Rafiki told Mufasa, “you’re a wizard, Harry.” sent chills up my spine. – 1.3K
So in this universe, Timon and Pumbaa were there the whole time too!? They didn’t even know who Mufasa was in 1 1/2! Update: Because people didn’t seem to understand what I was saying, I said “in this universe” for a reason. None of the live action remakes are canon to their animated originals, that’s not how it works. Also, it does seem to make sense if they both made up this part of the story to Kiara to make themselves look cool. We’ll have to wait and see how the movie turns out (not that I’m gonna watch it). – 1.7k
Mufasa roaring “YOU! SHALL NOT! PASS!” was the most epic part of the movie. – 814
Ah yes, the famous snowy, icy winters of central Africa. – 1k
“Who asked for this?” is a question that needs to be put before greenlighting movies – 1.1k
When Captain Marvel appeared and told Rey Palpatine she was the best all along I got chills
What did the director say?
Regarding what the director had to say, Barry Jenkins responded to fans calling him out on Twitter.
Following the trailer release, a fan tweeted, “Barry, You’re too good and talented for this Iger’s soulless machine.”
Jenkins responded, “There is nothing soulless about The Lion King. For decades children have sat in theaters all over the world experiencing collective grief for the first time, engaging Shakespeare for the first time, across aisles in myriad languages. A most potent vessel for communal empathy.”
Another fan who actually interviewed Jenkins before tweeted, “Come on man. I interviewed you when you premiered Moonlight at TIFF, and that Barry Jenkins wouldn’t have said what you just said. You can do a Disney movie for the check, in order to work on your passion projects at a later time, but you don’t have to shill like this.”
Jenkins responded, “Bruh what kind of logic is that? How about this, here are a few videos from the ‘same Barry Jenkins who premiered Moonlight’ (as you put it) showing some of the things I was doing in my spare time AT THE SAME TIME I was writing Moonlight..”
Jenkins then provided examples of his projects and replied, “Children have figured prominently in every single one of the projects from Moonlight til’ now without exception. Like… BRUH. You can say whatever you want about the film but telling ME that something I SAID about why something is meaningful to me for children is CAP? Nah bruh.”
